Notes

This document represents the university’s action plan in response to the results of the second cycle of the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), also referred to as COACHE II at Georgia State.

COACHE is a program of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE). COACHE data from Harvard was used to inform the action plan.

The report was formatted and designed by Jeremy Craig, Communications Manager for the Office of the Provost. It was originally published in June 2024.

Further information about COACHE at Georgia State is available at https://provost.gsu.edu/coache.

Foreword from Provost Nicolle Parsons-Pollard

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to present our plan of action in response to your feedback from our second COACHE (Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education) survey, administered in 2023.

COACHE is a cyclical improvement process. Following the administration of our first COACHE survey in 2020, we set forth a university-level action plan to address concerns identified by faculty. Colleges, schools, and institutes also created action plans specific to their units.

Divided into six areas identified for improvement, with 14 specific steps, the university made significant strides in making the words on the pages of the COACHE I plan a reality.

The actions taken from this first plan continue to have effect today, even into our second cycle, and several areas were no longer identified as areas of concern in the 2023 survey results. These include appreciation and recognition, governance, interdisciplinary work, faculty leadership, belongingness, and mentoring. (Further details about the results are available on page 3 of this document.)

In fact, an area of concern in the 2020 survey – a shared sense of purpose – was indicated in the 2023 survey as an area of strength at GSU.

Still, there is always room for improvement. Several areas identified in 2020 remained concerns in the 2023 survey results, including benefits and salary, service, and personal and family policies. Additionally, a new area of concern appeared in the second survey results – teaching.

The cyclical nature of COACHE and its insight into the specific issues behind the areas of concern provide us with the tools to address these challenges, using a data-driven approach to examine where we need to go further.

This second university COACHE action plan reflects that examination and careful consideration of how we can continue our progress. Leaders of the colleges, schools and institutes have done the same for their units and will issue unit-level action plans later in fall 2024.

The university-level plan is divided into the four broad areas identified for improvement, with 14 steps as goals for achievement. These steps address the specific issues raised in the survey regarding service, teaching, benefits and salary, and personal and family policies.

To achieve the ambitious goals outlined in the Blueprint to 2033 University Strategic Plan, we must have a great faculty to meet the challenges and opportunities for student success, teaching, learning, research, scholarship, and creative activity.

This means that Georgia State must be the best place to work in higher education.

Through the COACHE II Action Plan and a combined, collaborative effort to reach its goals, I am confident that this vision will become a reality.

As part of this process, we will continue to keep you updated on our progress using the university’s communications channels and the COACHE at Georgia State website.  A final report is anticipated for publication in the 2025-26 academic year.

Thank you for your participation, interest, and engagement in this process.  I am grateful for all you do to make Georgia State the innovative, enterprising institution we know today.

Sincerely,

Nicolle Parsons-Pollard, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

1. COACHE II Timeline

• Year 1: 2022 – 2023 Administer the Survey
• Year 2: 2023 – 2024 Develop Action Plan
• Year 3: 2024 – 2025 Implement the Plan
• Year 4: 2025 – 2026 Repeat the Cycle

2. Subject Area Coverage of Survey

• Nature of Work
• Resources and Support
• Cross-Silo Work and Mentorship
• Tenure and Promotion
• Institutional Leadership
• Shared Governance
• The Department
• Appreciation and Recognition
• Retention and Negotiation

3. Custom Questions for Georgia State (Same as COACHE I)

• Overall satisfaction
• Experience of belonging and inclusion
• Mentorship
• Service requirements

4. Georgia State’s Process

FALL 2022
Georgia State University consulted with the Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE) to begin the process of planning for the second COACHE cycle.

SPRING 2023
The survey was distributed to full-time faculty in February and closed in April. To encourage survey participation, the Office of the Provost offered additional professional development funds for the college or school with the highest response rate.

SUMMER 2023
The Office of Faculty Affairs, Office of Institutional Effectiveness and the Office of the Provost went to the Harvard GSE to receive university-level results and to consult with COACHE staff.

OCTOBER 2023
The university shared the results with the Georgia State community via two townhall sessions where the Atlanta campus data and Perimeter College results were presented.

OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2023
Georgia State received unit-level (college/school/institute) results from Harvard GSE.

LATE 2023-SPRING 2024
The Office of the Provost began to formulate action plans to address the findings of COACHE II.

SUMMER-FALL 2024
University-level and unit-level action plans published; implementation process begins.

FALL 2025
University and units publish a report of action plan outcomes.

5. Survey Results

Faculty response rates to the survey were 62%* and exceeded the university’s previous rate of 54%. In addition, Georgia State’s response rates were higher than both our peers and the entire cohort of institutions participating in COACHE. The overall response rate for Atlanta campus faculty was 62%, compared to 35% for peers and 42% for the university COACHE cohort. Perimeter faculty’s response rate was 60%, compared with 46% for peers and 47% for the community college COACHE cohort. The Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions had the highest faculty response rate at 87%* and all colleges/schools exceeded 50%.*

The results in each report are divided by subject area and are then broken down further into a disciplinary analysis and a demographic analysis. The disciplinary analysis disaggregates responses by broad academic field. The demographic analysis disaggregates responses by tenure status and rank, gender, race, and ethnicity.

An area of strength is any benchmark where Georgia State scores first or second among the selected comparison group and in the top 30 percent of Georgia State’s cohort.

Conversely, an area for improvement is where Georgia State faculty rating of a benchmark falls fifth or sixth among the institution’s five other peers and in the bottom 30 percent of Georgia State’s cohort.**

2023 Areas of Strength		Areas for Improvement
	Departmental Engagement		Nature of Work: Service
	Promotion to Full		Nature of Work: Teaching
	Governance: Shared Sense of Purpose		Benefits & Salary
	Departmental Leadership		Personal & Family Policies
	Senior Leadership

*Statistical Note: The numbers here represent the final data after COACHE’s data conditioning process and may deviate from the initial response rate reports that were shared on the web earlier in 2023 (namely in March and April).  In the report issued from COACHE in August 2023 COACHE defined a “response rate” as the percent of all qualified subjects whose responses, following the data conditioning process, were deemed eligible to be included in this analysis. The nonrespondents include faculty who were “screened out” by the survey application or by later data cleaning processes. Therefore, the proportion of faculty who started the survey may be higher than the response rate reported here based on the August 2023 report. 

**Comparison Institutions: Because of the different missions of the Atlanta campus and Perimeter College, separate groups of peer institutions were selected, with two separate cohort groups for this round of Georgia State’s COACHE survey. (Cohort groups may have different factors such as enrollment, research status, type of campus or campuses, etc., that do not lend themselves appropriate for peer comparisons.) Georgia State selected five institutions for Atlanta and for Perimeter respectively. Those peer institutions and cohort institutions are listed in Appendix B at the bottom of this web page.

Action Plan A1

The Office of Faculty Affairs conducted multiple sessions on implementing the American Council on Education’s (ACE) recommendations to promote equity-minded faculty workloads, providing guidance and a toolkit adapted specifically for the Georgia State context. Informal observations suggest that departments adopting these strategies have experienced increased faculty satisfaction regarding workload. While participation in these initiatives has been voluntary, the data strongly suggest that broader implementation and establishing expectations for involvement are necessary.

Action Plan A2

The Office of the Provost will establish a recognition for departments who participate in the workload program.

Action Plan A3

The Office of Faculty Affairs recently implemented a new series for faculty interested in or currently serving in leadership positions. The Leadership Hour began with a four-part series in Spring 2024 and will be expanded in 2024-2025 with a series of workshops that will span the full academic year.

Action Plan A4

The Office of Faculty Affairs will continue to offer the Chairs Lunch and Shares, the OFA Council (associate deans for faculty affairs in each college) will continue to meet with the Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs on a monthly basis, and the Leadership Academy for Women Faculty (LAWF) will resume in 2025-2026 (now offered every other year). Leaders from each college who serve as Mentor Advocates, will continue to meet with the Office of Faculty Affairs for support as they refine their college-wide mentoring programs.

Action Plan A5

The Office of the Provost has approved new positions aimed at supporting faculty leadership. These positions will be housed in the Office of Faculty Affairs.

Action Plan A6

The Graduate School and the Office of Faculty Affairs will collaborate on undergraduate mentorship training to support departments and colleges/schools. In addition, they will create a web presence to share mentoring resources.

Action Plan B1

The Office of the Provost will work with the deans to assess the level of administrative tasks that are impacting faculty. Once we have a better understanding of concerns, which may vary across colleges/schools, we can develop individual plans to address the concerns. The data in the college/school level COACHE reports will also prove helpful in this assessment.

In 2023-2024, the Office of Faculty Affairs began a series on Faculty Health and Wellness. In 2024-2025, they will launch their Wellness Hub – a wealth of resources available to faculty and administrators on a variety of topics, including time management and boundary setting. In support of time management, a recorded workshop and corresponding module will be available to share with faculty in each college.

Action Plan B2

As with the Nature of Work: Service, the Office of Faculty Affairs will broaden departmental participation in the equity-minded workload program. The Office of the Provost will establish expectations for participation.

Action Plan B3

The Office of the Provost will utilize the Math Task Force model to create more engagement across disciplines. The current task force has seen an increase in student engagement and completion rates on Atlanta and Perimeter campuses. The groups will be faculty led and focus on pedagogical practices, assessment of student learning, and course design.

Action Plan B4

Graduate students who teach (GTABs) play an integral role in Georgia State’s teaching mission. All colleges will establish a process in collaboration with the Graduate School to address consistent specialized training and preparation for GTABs.

Action Plan C1

After analyzing the data from the University’s inaugural comprehensive employee compensation study, we have taken proactive measures to enhance the competitiveness of our faculty salaries in comparison to market standards. Our approach involved defining a competitive range wherein salaries fell within a margin of plus or minus 15% of the market median. Additionally, we established that 85% of the median salary would serve as the minimum benchmark for inclusion within this competitive range.

The University will annually commit resources to closing the gaps identified in the compensation study.

Action Plan D1

The Office of Faculty Affairs will work closely with University Human Resources to review the data from the survey and explore any benefits that may exist but have not been widely shared with the campus community.

Action Plan D2

The Office of Faculty Affairs and University Human Resources will work with the Senate Executive Committee to engage with the University System of Georgia (USG) about how Georgia State can work with the USG to address faculty needs in matters involving system-level personal and family policies or programs that are beyond the university’s immediate purview as an individual unit of the system.

Action Plan D3

The USG has been exploring the issues related to spousal/partner hiring. The Office of the Provost will follow up on this work and share with the campus community. In addition, Georgia State will examine partnerships with other institutions to explore opportunities for hiring spouses and partners.

Appendix A: COACHE II Results Access

A summary of results from the second COACHE survey (2023) is available on the COACHE at Georgia State website at https://provost.gsu.edu/coache/coache-2/. Quantitative results are available to faculty using iCollege.

A summary PDF is also available by downloading the document available at this link: https://provost.gsu.edu/document/coache-ii-2023-results-summary/

Appendix B: Comparison/Cohort Institutions

As part of COACHE, the Harvard Graduate School of Education asked Georgia State to select a group of peer institutions against whom to assess Georgia State’s COACHE survey results.

Georgia State University operates under a single mission that comprehensively defines our scope of activities and is expressed in our Mission Statement. The university’s Board-approved scope includes the blended functions of a research university and a state college.

Because of this, Georgia State has two sets of peer institutions selected to compare results and is part of two separate cohort institution groups.

The survey year used for comparisons at each institution is marked in parentheses.

Atlanta Campus

Comparison (Peer) Institutions

For the Atlanta campus, the university selected the following five institutions as its peers:

• CUNY – School of Law (2023)
• Florida International University (2020)
• SUNY – Stony Brook University (2022)
• University of Central Florida (2021)
• University of Louisville (2023)

All Cohort Institutions

Faculty from the following 86 institutions comprise the comparison cohort of universities for the 2023 GSU COACHE survey. These institutions are not peers of Georgia State but have different missions, campus types, research levels, and other factors:

• Appalachian State University (2022)
• Auburn University (2023)
• Baylor University (2020)
• Bowling Green State University (2023)
• Brown University (2023)
• California State University – Fullerton (2022)
• Central Michigan University (2021)
• Clarkson University (2020)
• Clemson University (2022)
• CUNY – Bernard M Baruch College (2023)
• CUNY – Brooklyn College (2023)
• CUNY – City College of New York (2023)
• CUNY – College of Staten Island (2023)
• CUNY – Hunter College (2023)
• CUNY – John Jay College of Criminal Justice (2023)
• CUNY – Lehman College (2023)
• CUNY – Medgar Evers College (2023)
• CUNY – New York City College of Technology (2023)
• CUNY – Queens College (2023)
• CUNY – School of Law (2023)
• CUNY – The Graduate School and University Center (2023)
• CUNY – York College (2023)
• Emory University (2023)
• Fisk University (2021)
• Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (2022)
• Florida Gulf Coast University (2023)
• Florida International University (2020)
• Florida State University (2021)
• George Mason University (2022)
• Georgetown University (2022)
• Illinois State University (2022)
• Indiana University – Bloomington (2023)
• Iowa State University (2021)
• James Madison University (2020)
• Kent State University (2022)
• Lehigh University (2022)
• Louisiana State University (2021)
• Missouri University of Science and Technology (2023)
• North Carolina Central University (2021)
• North Carolina State University (2021)
• Old Dominion University (2023)
• Purdue University (2022)
• Radford University (2022)
• Rochester Institute of Technology (2023)
• Rutgers University-Camden (2023)
• Rutgers University-Newark (2023)
• Rutgers University-New Brunswick (2023)
• St. John’s University (2022)
• SUNY – Stony Brook University (2022)
• SUNY – University at Buffalo (2022)
• Texas Tech University (2022)
• Tulane University (2023)
• University of Arkansas (2022)
• University of California, Davis (2021)
• University of Central Florida (2021)
• University of Cincinnati – Main Campus (2022)
• University of Connecticut (2020)
• University of Delaware (2020)
• University of Denver (2023)
• University of Houston – Clear Lake (2020)
• University of Kansas (2022)
• University of Louisville (2023)
• University of Maryland, College Park (2020)
• University of Massachusetts – Amherst (2020)
• University of Missouri – Columbia (2022)
• University of Missouri – Kansas City (2023)
• University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (2021)
• University of North Carolina – Charlotte (2021)
• University of North Texas (2021)
• University of Richmond (2023)
• University of South Carolina – Columbia (2023)
• University of South Florida (2020)
• University of Tennessee (2021)
• University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (2022)
• University of Tennessee at Martin (2022)
• University of Tennessee Southern (2022)
• University of Texas at Arlington (2021)
• University of Texas at Austin (2023)
• University of Texas at El Paso (2023)
• University of the Pacific (2020)
• University of Virginia (2020)
• Vanderbilt University (2020)
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (2023)
• Washington State University (2022)
• Wichita State University (2020)
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute (2021)

Perimeter College

Comparison (Peer) Institutions

For the purposes of Perimeter College results, Georgia State selected 5 other peer institutions:

• Amarillo College (2022)
• CUNY – Borough of Manhattan Community College (2023)
• CUNY – Kingsborough Community College (2023)
• CUNY – LaGuardia Community College (2023)
• CUNY – Queensborough Community College (2023)

Cohort Institutions

Faculty from the following eight institutions comprise the comparison cohort of community colleges for the Georgia State COACHE report. Institutions not included in the list above may not have the same qualities or factors that make peer comparisons possible:

• Amarillo College (2022)
• CUNY – Borough of Manhattan Community College (2023)
• CUNY – Bronx Community College (2023)
• CUNY – Guttman Community College (2023)
• CUNY – Hostos Community College (2023)
• CUNY – Kingsborough Community College (2023)
• CUNY – LaGuardia Community College (2023)
• CUNY – Queensborough Community College (2023)

Appendix C: Response Rates

As an incentive for completion, the college with the highest response rate received professional development funds. As noted in the dark blue bar below, the Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions had the highest response rate at 87%.*

*Please see the note in Part I of this action plan regarding these numbers and initial numbers published on the web during the fall 2023 semester. (Click here to jump to this section above.)